US coppers face music over illegal Dotcom raid

A Kiwi court hearing into the arrest of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has heard how the Kiwi police beat him up during an illegal raid. Dotcom told a court how in Auckland today that he was punched and kicked by police during the raid in January.

He told the court that he was installing a Windows update on his computer when he heard a helicopter overhead. When he heard the pinging sound of stones and gravel. The next thing he heard was a a loud banging at his bedroom door. He went to a safe room, where he was found by police.

Dotcom said he put his hands up when police entered the room, but he was punched, kicked and pushed to the ground. Dotcom told crown prosecutor John Pike he would have co-operated with police had they knocked on his door, rather than banging it down.

The raid was organised by the police special tactics group. The copper, whose name is suppressed, was questioned by defence lawyer Paul Davison about whether the police response was appropriate given the level of risk posed by Dotcom. Images and CCTV footage of the raid have been suppressed as well.

The raid was ruled illegal because the police had not applied for the right warrant. In any event, they seem to have treated Dotcom like he was the arms dealing, drugs smuggler that Big Content claimed, rather than the fairly obvious rotund P2P pirate.